Reviews for Economics: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University in the Series on Science, Philosophy a...

The average rating for Economics: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University in the Series on Science, Philosophy a... based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-08-13 00:00:00 Deborah Prigal Loyalty to Loyalty The postscript included below is from today’s New York Times. It reminded me that I had never made the comments I’d intended two years ago on Royce’s The Philosophy of Loyalty . In The Philosophy of Loyalty Royce makes the case for what he believes in the central human virtue. Royce’s philosophy was substantially influenced by the Christian teaching of his mother who was also somewhat of a mystic. For him, loyalty is the general social aspect of the Christian idea of love, that is, the habitual raising of the interests of another above our own. The theological model from which he derived his concept of loyalty is that of the Divine Trinity in which each of the distinct Persons is defined in terms of their complete and eternal devotion to the Others. This devotion is not a property of each Person but rather the defining characteristic of the relationship among them. In a specific sense, therefore, the essence of each Person is a distinctive commitment to the mutual relationships within the Trinity. This is expressed in Royce’s philosophy as “Loyalty to Loyalty.” Despite its religious inspiration, Royce’s philosophy is meant for a secular audience. His argument is that we are all improved as human beings through the demonstration of loyalty by any one of us. Loyalty is not a zero sum but a positive sum relationship. But his concept of loyalty, and especially loyalty to loyalty, is easy to misinterpret. In an era when someone like Trump extols the virtue of loyalty as a reason for omertà, silence about criminal activities, some further explanation is obviously necessary. For Trump, loyalty clearly means personal devotion at any cost to someone else. But this has nothing to do with the loyalty of Christianity or Royce’s philosophy. It is a parody, a purposeful distortion of the principle of love. Loyalty is a two way street. Not in the sense that we can only be loyal to those who are loyal to us, but because loyalty demands that we accept the diverse loyalties of others. Ultimate loyalty is to the relationship which promotes the loyalty of others, not just to ourselves but much more generally. Loyalty demands that we respect what Royce calls the ‘Cause’ of the other. This is another way of saying that we are all pursuing some purpose, and that as an essential aspect of being human purpose must be respected. Valuing the Causes of others, he contends, will assist in the recognition as well as achievement of our own. We and others may not be even aware of the possibility of such a Cause, in which case the duty of loyalty is to assist in its articulation and bringing it to conscious awareness. Of course not all Causes are equal. Some may be trivial; others provoked by neurotic impulses; some are evil. According to Royce there is a way to distinguish among Causes. A Cause is more important if it is ‘bigger’ than another, that is if it incorporates other Causes within itself. Thus the Cause of a marriage is more important than the Causes of the individuals who constitute the marriage. A Cause is better than another Cause to the extent it accepts the Causes of others and reformulates those diverse Causes successfully - for example the health and well-being of an entire family of parents and children certainly includes the well-being of each individual but redefines what that well-being means as a member of the family.. Loyalty to loyalty is the practical commitment to finding a joint, group or communal Cause. The default relationship - in marriage, in corporate business, in politics - is to presume that no such Cause exists unless the parties have interests in common. Loyalty to loyalty implies not the discovery of common interests but the invention of an entirely new set of interests in which individual interests are not obliterated but subsumed as special cases. Loyalty to loyalty also implies that no Cause, except that which restricts or invalidates other Causes, can be excluded. This is a profound re-interpretation of democracy, not as a political system of equality of opinion but as a process of discovering increasingly general purpose. Royce’s sort of philosophical idealism was a response to the carnage and civil disintegration of the American Civil War. It was abruptly removed from the national scene as a consequence of the carnage and civil disintegration of the First World War. I think the NYT article is correct. There are strong reasons for promoting a revival of Royce’s philosophy of loyalty. It is a prescription for finding real unity out of divisive chaos. It is a philosophy as urgently relevant in Europe as it is in North America. It is simultaneously a morality and an organizational principle which applies as much to politics as it does to business. Finally, it is a personal attitude which promotes listening for the hidden intentions and unspoken purposes of not just others but also ourselves. Postscript 1Feb19:

Review # 2 was written on 2017-04-09 00:00:00 Elizabeth Silva Royce's "The Philosophy Of Loyalty" The American philosopher Josiah Royce (1855 -- 1916) taught a form of idealism and rationalism that has few current adherents. In recent years, however, there has been a revival of interest in Royce's ethical and social philosophy as developed in a 1908 book, "The Philosophy of Loyalty". The book is based on a series of eight lectures Royce gave at the Lowell Institute in Boston for a lay audience, rather than an audience consisting solely of professional philosophers. Thus Royce emphasizes the practical aim of his lectures in helping his audience achieve a degree of clarity regarding the nature of ethical behavior and reflection. But the book is also difficult and consists of a mixture of ethics, social philosophy, and idealistic metaphysics and religion. Royce is unique among philosophers in emphasizing what he takes to be the fundamental value of loyalty. The immediate objection to focusing on loyalty as a basis for ethics is that people frequently display loyalty to bad causes, such as a gang of thieves, the Mafia, Nazi Germany, and many other examples. Royce is aware of this objection and tries to meet it as he develops his position. Royce developed his philosophy of loyalty against the backdrop of the tumultuous, changing United States of the early 20th Century. He begins his book, "one of the most familiar traits of our time is the tendency to revise tradition, to reconsider the foundations of old beliefs, and sometimes mercilessly to destroy what once seemed indispensable. This disposition, as we all know, is especially prominent in the realms of social theory and of religious belief." Royce wants to counter what he sees as the rise of moral individualism, with what Royce sees as its exaggerated notions of atomism and autonomy. He also is concerned with moral skepticism and with a Nietzschean attempt at transvaluation of ethical standards. I think the book aims primarily at dissolving a commonly-held dichotomy of "the individual as against the society" by showing that individual lives gain meaning only within the context of a community. Royce's book can be seen as presenting an ever-widening structure of concentric circles beginning with the self's relationship to family, and proceeding to community, the choice of a career, nation, humanity, and, ultimately, religion and what Royce takes as the Absolute. The key to the connectedness of self and others, for Royce, is loyalty. Royce offers two definitions of loyalty. The first "preliminary" definition takes the reader through the first six chapters of the book, while the fuller definition is offered only near the end. Royce's preliminary definition of "loyalty" is "the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause." The definition has three components: 1. a "cause", which I take to be a "purpose" to life, 2. a decision by the person to devote him or herself to the chosen cause and 3. actions expressing the decision in a "sustained and practical way". Among other examples Royce gives of a loyal life is "the devotion of a patriot to his country." Royce says many insightful things about loyalty in the first six chapters of the book. He discusses how loyalty is to developed and learned beginning in early childhood leading ultimately to the development of individual conscience. He argues that loyalty and the having of a purpose in life external to oneself is the fulfillment of individualism rather than its rejection. He works to separate the concept of loyalty from its militaristic associations. He tries to apply his philosophy of loyalty to broad, general issues in American life. For example, he criticizes the corruption and self-centered character of both some large corporations and some trade unions. Royce also develops his position of "loyalty to loyalty" in part as a way of meeting the objection that individuals may be loyal to bad causes. Royce argues that individuals have choice in deciding how to lead their lives and in determining the goals they find valuable. Individuals will differ and often disagree in their choices and the consequences. Royce maintains that individuals must make choices which honor the loyal choices of others, even when these choices are not their own. A choice to join the Mafia, for example, does not honor "loyalty to loyalty" because the activities of that organization involve the use of intimidation, violence, and abuse rather than respect for the lives and choices of others. The final two chapters of "The Philosophy of Loyalty" carry the argument to a difficult metaphysical level. Royce argues that the philosophy of loyalty when pushed to metaphysics requires a commitment to an independent truth, expanding the concept of the individual's relationship to community. Thus Royce argues in favor of a strong notion of truth against the pragmatic conception of truth held by his friend and colleague William James. Royce then concludes by using his strong, absolutistic version of truth to state his full definition of "loyalty": "Loyalty is the will to manifest, so far as is possible, the Eternal, that is, the conscious and superhuman unity of life, in the form of the acts of an individual Self." He also restates the definition: "Loyalty is the Will to Believe in something eternal, and to express that belief in the practical life of a human being." Royce's full definition of loyalty owes a great deal to William James' essay, "The Will to Believe". Royce's philosophy of loyalty is of strong interest to thinkers working towards a philosophy of community which bridges the tension between individual and society. This was an issue in Royce's day and remains an issue today. In studying Royce, it remains important to understand how his thinking about loyalty remains emeshed in idealism, even if it is a pragmatic form of idealism. Regardless of whether one agrees with Royce, "The Philosophy of Loyalty" rewards reading for those interested in ethics, social philosophy, or American philosophy. The book is one of the more accessible of Royce's writings. It is available in this Vanderbilt edition, in numerous offprints, and is reprinted in full in the second volume of John McDermott's compilation of the Basic Writings of Josiah Royce The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, Volume II: Logic, Loyalty, and Community (American Philosophy) Robin Friedman